Band | The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones First gig: 12 July 1962 Venue: Marquee Club, London Lineup: Mick Jagger Keith Richards Brian Jones Ian Stewart Dick Taylor Tony Chapman Band When the nascent Rolling Stones began playing gigs around London in 1962, the notion that a rock & roll band would last five years, let alone fifty, was an absurdity. After all, what could possibly be more ephemeral than rock & roll, the latest teenage fad? Besides, other factors made it unlikely that such a momentous occasion would ever come to pass. “I didn’t expect to last until fifty myself, let alone with the Stones,” Keith Richards says with a laugh. “It’s incredible, really. In that sense we’re still living on borrowed time.” “You have to put yourself back into that time,” Mick Jagger says about those early days when he and Keith and guitarist Brian Jones roomed together and were hustling gigs wherever they could find one. “Popular music wasn’t talked about on any kind of intellectual level. There was no such term as ‘popular culture.’ None of those things existed.” “But suddenly popular music became bigger than it had ever been before.

It became an important, perhaps the most important, art form of the period, after not at all being regarded as an art form before.” Mick Jagger Times and attitudes quickly changed, in short, and now five decades later, the Rolling Stones are celebrating an anniversary that artists in any field would be overjoyed to attain. Indeed, the Stones will be marking the fiftieth anniversary of their first gig at the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962 with a celebratory appearance at that storied venue, five decades later to the day. At that first show, the group was billed as the Rollin’ Stones and, of what would become the band’s original lineup, only Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and keyboardist Ian Stewart performed. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts would formally join in January of 1963, and Stewart officially left the band in May, though he continued on as the Stones’ road manager and occasionally played with them both on stage and in the studio until his death in 1985.

To commemorate the Stones’ 50th anniversary, noted filmmaker Brett Morgen directed a no-holds-barred documentary about the band, Crossfire Hurricane, and the Stones released GRRR!, a greatest hits collection that includes two brand new songs and a stunning album cover designed by Walton Ford. The Stones then went back on the road for the 50 & Counting Tour, visiting London, New York and other cities across North America and Canada in celebration of five decades, culminating with a legendary performance at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival plus two major outdoor shows in London’s Hyde Park, chronicled in the concert film Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live. The Stones then launched another sell out tour, 14 ON FIRE, that brought them to Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In 2015 the band stunned audiences in the USA for the umpteenth time with their Zip Code tour and a re-mastered Sticky Fingers album. In early 2016, the Stones launched their América Latina Olé tour, which consisted of thirteen electrifying dates in Central and South America.

As a dramatic capstone to that trip, the Stones performed in Cuba for the first time, electrifying an audience of 1.2 million fans in Havana. In another historic live performance, the Stones will participate this October in Desert Trip, a three-day superstar festival in Indio, California that will also feature Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, the Who, Neil Young and Roger Waters. In addition, Exhibitionism, a groundbreaking, career-spanning exhibition devoted to the Stones’ legendary history, opened earlier this year at the Saatchi Gallery in London to rave reviews. It will travel to New York this November for a run at Industria. To mark the Stones’ 50th anniversary a few years back, a book was produced, The Rolling Stones: 50, chronicling the group’s legendary journey through rare and previously unseen photographs, including images from every aspect of the Stones’ history – reportage photos, shots from recording sessions, concert highlights and outtakes from studio shoots.

It was a highly appropriate focus of the anniversary since such visual images constituted an essential element of how the Stones defined themselves in those pre-Internet, pre-MTV days when photos of a band on an album cover or in newspapers and magazines determined how they would be viewed for years to come. “It was a very new development that famous photographers would take pictures of rock bands, and it was really fantastic,” Mick Jagger recalls. “Those images were very much used and very widely seen, and they were essential to conveying who the Rolling Stones were to the public. Suddenly we were in all these magazines and one thing led to another. We became part of the whole Sixties phenomenon, breaking through the boundaries of pop music into fashion, films, television and everything else.” “There was an amazing energy going on with people our age then,” Keith Richards adds. “It’s transformed the way the Seventies would have been or the Eighties or the Nineties or now.” Of course, the Rolling Stones themselves are among the most important reasons for the dramatic breakthroughs and transformations that have taken place over the last five decades. Indeed, it’s essentially impossible to overestimate the importance of the Rolling Stones in rock & roll history.

The group distilled so much of the music that had come before it and has exerted a decisive influence on so much that has come after. Only a handful of musicians in any genre achieve that stature, and the Stones stand proudly among them. They exist in a pantheon of the most rarefied kind. Needless to say, having lived life in the whirlwind of the Stones’ history, the band itself doesn’t see it in exactly those terms. “It’s been surprisingly organic,” Keith Richards says. “I mean, there was no sort of master plan. We were flying by the seat of our pants. That is what amazes me, that the whole thing was improvised. We’ve been an amazingly resilient bunch of lads, that’s all I say. We’ve been part of everything that’s happened, and we’re an important part, I suppose. If you say I’m great, thank you very much, but I know what I am. I could be better, man, you know?” Keith Richards “I can understand a bit about the kind of influence the Rolling Stones have had, because we were in the same position,” Mick Jagger says.

“We modeled ourselves on lots of people who came before us, and I learned to sing from various blues artists and from Chuck Berry and others. When we’d play with someone like Little Richard, I would be incredibly impressed, and I’d go on stage and try to be as good as I could be because I knew that Little Richard was watching me.” The effort clearly paid off. Every album the Stones released through the early Seventies – from The Rolling Stones in 1964 to Exile on Main Street in 1972 — is essential not simply to an understanding of the music of that era, but to an understanding of the era itself. In their intense interest in blues and R&B, the Stones connected a young audience in the U.S. to music that was unknown to the vast majority of white Americans. Though the Stones were not overtly political in their early years, their obsession with African American music – from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf to Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and Don Covay – struck a chord that resonated with the goals of the civil rights movement. If the Stones had never made an album after 1965 they would still be legendary.

Soon, of course, the Stones became synonymous with the rebellious attitude of that era. Songs like ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, ‘Street Fighting Man’, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’ captured the violence, frustration and chaos of that time. For the Stones, the Sixties were not a time of peace and love; in many ways, the band found psychedelia and wide-eyed utopianism confusing and silly. The Stones always were – and continue to be – tough-minded pragmatists. Against the endless promises of Sixties idealism the Stones understood that ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. You simply want to Let It Be? It’s more likely, given the harsh world we live in, that you might have to Let It Bleed. For those reasons, as the Sixties drained into the Seventies, the Stones went on a creative run that rivals any in popular music. Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile On Main St (1972) routinely turn up on lists of the greatest albums of all time, and deservedly so.

All done with American producer Jimmy Miller – “an incredible rhythm man,” in Richards’ terse description – those records shake like the culture itself was shaking. As the Stones were working on Let It Bleed, Brian Jones died, and the band replaced him with Mick Taylor, a profoundly gifted guitarist whose lyricism and melodic flair counterbalanced Richards’ insistent, irreducible rhythmic drive, adding an element to the band’s sound that hadn’t been there before, and opening fertile new musical directions. After that, the Stones were an indomitable force on the music scene, and they have continued to be to this day. The albums Goats Head Soup (1973), It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (1974) and Black and Blue (1976), found the Stones creating such hits as “Angie” and “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” and exploring their way through a period of transition, with guitarist Ron Wood coming on board in 1975 to replace Mick Taylor, contributing another key element to the band’s evolving sound.

Then in 1978 the album, Some Girls, rose to the challenge of punk (“When the Whip Comes Down”) – whose energy and attitude the Stones had defined a decade earlier – but also swung with the sinuous grooves of disco (“Miss You”). The album is one of the very best of that decade. Tattoo You (1981) added the classics “Start Me Up” and “Waiting on a Friend” to the Stones’ repertoire, and took its prominent place among the Stones’ most compelling – and most popular – later albums. Possibly the most underrated album of the Stones’ career, Dirty Work (1986) finds the band at its rawest and most rhythmically charged, a reflection of the tumult within the band when it was recorded. True Stones fans have long worn their appreciation of Dirty Work as a hip badge of honor. With the release of Steel Wheels in 1989, the Stones went back on the road again for the first time in seven years and inaugurated the latest phase of the band’s illustrious career.

They’ve made strong, credible new studio albums during this period – Voodoo Lounge (1994), Bridges to Babylon (1997), A Bigger Bang (2006) – along with the excellent live album Stripped (1995) and the fun, immensely satisfying hits collection, Forty Licks (2002). More significantly, though, the Stones have set a standard for live performance during this time. That is an achievement completely in accord with the band’s history, something that has defined the group from the very start. Mick Jagger remembers that “As soon as we got in front of audiences, they went crazy. It started in clubs, and then it just continued to grow.” “Something was happening in the late winter of 1962 and afterwards,” Keith Richards says, “because suddenly hundreds and then thousands of people were queuing up to see us. And it doesn’t take a nail driven through your head to realize that something’s going on and that you’re part of it. It was an amazing experience and it happened so fast, starting in London and then moving out from there.

It was like hanging onto a tornado.” When the Stones began to be introduced on their 1969 tour as “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,’ they were staking that claim on the basis of their live performances. It was almost fashionable for bands to withdraw from the road at that time – Bob Dylan and the Beatles had both done so. But the Stones set out to prove that writing brilliant songs and making powerful records did not mean that you were too lofty to get up in front of your fans and rock them until their bones rattled. The Stones’ live shows – epitomized, of course, by Jagger’s galvanizing erotic choreography – had earned the band its reputation, and that flame was being rekindled. It was lit again twenty years later, and it’s burning still. Since 1989 the Stones have repeatedly toured to ecstatic response. Bassist Darryl Jones, who had formerly played with Miles Davis, began performing with the Stones in 1994, replacing Bill Wyman, and the Stones turned what could have been a setback into a rejuvenating rush of new energy.

The Stones’ live success during this period is not a matter of dollars or box-office breakthroughs, though the band has enjoyed plenty of both. It’s about demonstrating a vital, ongoing commitment to the idea that performing is what keeps a band truly alive. And that’s the critical misunderstanding of the question, “Is this the last time?” that has been coming up every time the Stones have toured for more than forty years now. It’s true that over the decades the Stones have been in the news for many reasons that have little to do with music – arrests, provocative statements, divorces, feuds, affairs, stints in rehab, all the usual detritus of a raucous lifetime in the public eye. And there’s no doubt that Mick Jagger is as recognizable a celebrity as the world has ever seen and attracts all the attention, positive and negative, that such a status inevitably entails. But, for all that, the Stones are best understood as musicians, and their own acceptance of that fact is what has enabled them to carry on so well for so long. For all the tabloid headlines, Mick Jagger is ultimately an extraordinary lead singer and one of the most riveting performers – in any art form – ever to set foot on a stage.

Keith Richards is the propulsive engine that drives the Stones and makes their music instantly recognizable. Their complementary styles, incomparable collaborative genius as songwriters and even their all-too-public battles have made them the very definition of the rock & roll singer/guitarist partnership, battling brothers who have often been imitated and never surpassed. Ron Wood, meanwhile, is a guitarist who has formed a rhythmic union with Richards, but who also colors and textures the band’s songs with deft, melodic touches. And Charlie Watts, needless to say, is one of rock’s greatest, most supple drummers. He is both the rock that anchors the band, and the subtle force that swings it. At once elegant in their simplicity and soaring in their impact, none of his gestures are wasted, all are necessary. He and Darryl Jones enliven the often-monolithic notion of the rock & roll rhythm section with an irresistible, unpretentious, jazz-derived sophistication. “It’s incredible to think about working with the same band for fifty years,” Mick Jagger says. “Of course, members have come and gone over the years, but it is still the Rolling Stones. Inevitably it makes you think about the mortality of it.

But here we are making plans and attempting to get things organized for the future!” “It’s still too early for me to talk about the Stones’ legacy,” Keith Richards says. “We haven’t finished yet. There’s one thing that we haven’t yet achieved, and that’s to really find out how long you can do this. It’s still such a joy to play with this band that you can’t really let go of it. So we’ve got to find out, you know?” Musicians live and create in the moment, and that’s why fans still yearn to go see and hear the Stones. Certainly there’s a catalogue of songs that very few artists could rival. Surely there’s the desire on the part of fans, both young and old, to encounter a band that has played a pristine role in shaping our very idea of what rock & roll is. But seeing the Rolling Stones live is to see a working band playing as hard as they can, and there’s no last time for that. It’s not only rock n roll, it’s essential rock n roll.

And the story continues… Lineup Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts speechless over Jagger the 11-year-old drummer Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts speechless over Jagger the 11-year-old drummer reddit More No one gets near the Rolling Stones, still one of the world's hottest (and most protected) bands 50 years on. No-one except a precocious 11-year-old Sydney boy called Jagger, who calls the band's drummer, Charlie Watts, his mentor. Jagger Alexander-Erber is the Australian drumming prodigy first seen on Australia's Got Talent in 2012, and he has three drumming heroes: The Who's Keith Moon, Led Zepplin's John Bonham and Watts. SHARE Pin to Pinterest PIN Link The Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts with fan Jagger Alexander-Erber, who gifted his rock idol with a cymbal once owned by Jackie Dougan. On Wednesday he managed to leave speechless the only one of those three drumming legends still living, before the Rolling Stones wowed Sydney at Allphones Arena. He gave Watts, 73, a gift, a rare cymbal - once owned by Watts' own hero, Jackie Dougan.

He was repaid by being allowed to sit for photos at Watt's 1963 Gretsch drum kit in front of a packed Allphones Arena minutes before the Stones four-star show began. Watts told Jagger the only other people allowed to sit there were his grandchildren. Related Content Mick Jagger shows no signs of slowing down as the Rolling Stones play Allphones Arena Jagger wasn't permitted to play the kit and didn't because he didn't want to annoy Watts' security guard or Watts himself - a quiet man with a legendary reputation. Watts is rumoured to have once punched Mick Jagger in the face for suggesting Watts was "my f---ing drummer". "I was tempted [to play], I had the sticks in my hand sitting at the kit and I thought 'why not?' But the drum tech said 'do not play it!'" Advertisement Jagger says Watts looked amazed by the gift. "He just kept saying 'Jackie Dougan! Jackie Dougan' over and over. He was surprised, his eyes were really wide open and he said 'How did you get this?

It's amazing'." Jagger, who was named after Rolling Stones' frontman Mick Jagger, has been invited backstage with the Stones before at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles last year, when he also met Kiss and Motley Crue. Watts saw a segment on Jagger on an American television network, AXS, and the Stones' camp tracked down Jagger's father, Mark Alexander-Erber. SHARE Link Jagger Alexander-Erber onstage at the Rolling Stones concert at Sydney's Allphones Arena on Wednesday night. "The best thing is Jagger will now have Charlie Watts as a mentor. The connection he made was incredible … [although] Charlie doesn't have a phone or use email. [My son] is now known to the Stones camp. Keith Richards walked past and patted him on the shoulder and said 'G'day Jagger," Mr Alexander-Erber said. How will Jagger cope with the relative boredom of school on Thursday after his brush with rock royalty? "I got to bed about 11.30pm. I'm tired.

Tell dad I need a day off school." Photo gallery Rolling Stones performing in Sydney Jagger studies music at The McDonald College, North Strathfield - and last week was awarded a junior scholarship, which reduces his tuition fees. What will he say to his classmates? "My mates at school are not really into Rolling Stones at all, they are into that pop rubbish. He just kept saying 'Jackie Dougan! Jackie Dougan' over and over. He was surprised, his eyes were really wide open and he said 'How did you get this? It's amazing' "If they ask I'll say it was an amazing night and we got to meet one of the most famous drummers in the world." Jagger is these days a fast-rising star himself. He has a Facebook page with 66,000 likes and his YouTube videos have been watched hundreds of thousands of times. He has appeared with several rock bands - including Limp Bizkit and Rose Tattoo, - and will join the Choirboys on stage at the Cherry Bar in Melbourne on Saturday night.

SHARE The Rolling Stones | New Music And Songs | The Rolling Stones About The Rolling Stones By the time the Rolling Stones began calling themselves the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the late '60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the title. As the self-consciously dangerous alternative to the bouncy Merseybeat of the Beatles in the British Invasion, the Stones had pioneered the gritty, hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that came to define hard rock. With his preening machismo and latent maliciousness, Mick Jagger became the prototypical rock frontman, tempering his macho showmanship with a detached, campy irony while Keith Richards and Brian Jones wrote the blueprint for sinewy, interlocking rhythm guitars. Backed by the strong yet subtly swinging rhythm section of bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, the Stones became the breakout band of the British blues scene, eclipsing such contemporaries as the Animals and Them. Over the course of their career, the Stones never really abandoned blues, but as soon as they reached popularity in the U.K., they began experimenting musically, incorporating the British pop of contemporaries like the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Who into their sound.

After a brief dalliance with psychedelia, the Stones re-emerged in the late '60s as a jaded, blues-soaked hard rock quintet. They had always flirted with the seedy side of rock & roll, but as the hippie dream began to break apart, they exposed and reveled in the new rock culture. It wasn't without difficulty, of course. Shortly after he was fired from the group, Jones was found dead in a swimming pool, while at a 1969 free concert at Altamont, a concertgoer was brutally killed during a Stones' show. But the Stones never stopped going. For the next 50-plus years, they continued to record and perform, and while their records weren't always blockbusters, they were never less than the most visible band of their era -- certainly, none of their British peers continued to be as popular or productive as the Stones. And no band since has proven to have such a broad fan base or such far-reaching popularity, and it is impossible to hear any of the groups that followed them without detecting some sort of influence, whether it was musical or aesthetic.

Throughout their career, Mick Jagger (vocals) and Keith Richards (guitar, vocals) remained at the core of the Rolling Stones. The pair initially met as children at Dartford Maypole County Primary School. They drifted apart over the next ten years, eventually making each other's acquaintance again in 1960, when they met through a mutual friend, Dick Taylor, who was attending Sidcup Art School with Richards. At the time, Jagger was studying at the London School of Economics and playing with Taylor in the blues band Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys. Shortly afterward, Richards joined the band. Within a year, they had met Brian Jones (guitar, vocals), a Cheltenham native who had dropped out of school to play saxophone and clarinet. By the time he became a fixture on the British blues scene, Jones had already had a wild life. He ran away to Scandinavia when he was 16 and had already fathered two illegitimate children. He returned to Cheltenham after a few months, where he began playing with the Ramrods. Shortly afterward, he moved to London, where he played in Alexis Korner's group, Blues Inc.

Jones quickly decided he wanted to form his own group and advertised for members; among those he recruited was the heavyset blues pianist Ian Stewart. As he played with his group, Jones also moonlighted under the name Elmo Jones at the Ealing Blues Club. At the pub, he became reacquainted with Blues, Inc., which now featured drummer Charlie Watts, and, on occasion, cameos by Jagger and Richards. Jones became friends with Jagger and Richards, and they soon began playing together with Taylor and Stewart; during this time, Mick was elevated to the status of Blues, Inc.'s lead singer. With the assistance of drummer Tony Chapman, the fledgling band recorded a demo tape. After the tape was rejected by EMI, Taylor left the band to attend the Royal College of Art; he would later form the Pretty Things. Before Taylor's departure, the group named itself the Rolling Stones, borrowing the moniker from a Muddy Waters song. The Rolling Stones gave their first performance at the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962.

At the time, the group consisted of Jagger, Richards, Jones, pianist Ian Stewart, drummer Mick Avory, and Dick Taylor, who had briefly returned to the fold. Weeks after the concert, Taylor left again and was replaced by Bill Wyman, formerly of the Cliftons. Avory also left the group -- he would later join the Kinks -- and the Stones hired Tony Chapman, who proved to be unsatisfactory. After a few months of persuasion, the band recruited Charlie Watts, who had quit Blues, Inc. to work at an advertising agency once the group's schedule became too hectic. By 1963, the band's lineup had been set, and the Stones began an eight-month residency at the Crawdaddy Club, which proved to substantially increase their fan base. It also attracted the attention of Andrew Loog Oldham, who became the Stones' manager, signing them from underneath the Crawdaddy Club's Giorgio Gomelsky. Although Oldham didn't know much about music, he was gifted at promotion, and he latched upon the idea of fashioning the Stones as the bad-boy opposition to the clean-cut Beatles.

At his insistence, the large yet meek Stewart was forced out of the group, since his appearance contrasted with the rest of the group. Stewart didn't disappear from the Stones; he became one of their key roadies and played on their albums and tours until his death in 1985. With Oldham's help, the Rolling Stones signed with Decca Records, and that June, they released their debut single, a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." The single became a minor hit, reaching number 21, and the group supported it with appearances on festivals and package tours. At the end of the year, they released a version of Lennon-McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" that soared into the Top 15. Early in 1964, they released a cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," which shot to number three. "Not Fade Away" became their first American hit, reaching number 48 that spring. By that time, the Stones were notorious in their homeland. Considerably rougher and sexier than the Beatles, the Stones were the subject of numerous sensationalistic articles in the British press, culminating in a story about the band urinating in public.

All of these stories cemented the group as a dangerous, rebellious band in the minds of the public, and had the effect of beginning a manufactured rivalry between them and the Beatles, which helped the group rocket to popularity in the U.S. In the spring of 1964, the Stones released their eponymous debut album, which was followed by "It's All Over Now," their first U.K. number one. That summer, they toured America to riotous crowds, recording the Five by Five EP at Chess Records in Chicago in the midst of the tour. By the time it was over, they had another number one U.K. single with Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster." Although the Stones had achieved massive popularity, Oldham decided to push Jagger and Richards into composing their own songs, since they -- and his publishing company -- would receive more money that away. In June of 1964, the group released their first original single, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)," which became their first American Top 40 hit. Shortly afterward, a version of Irma Thomas' "Time Is on My Side" became their first U.S. Top Ten.

It was followed by "The Last Time" in early 1965, a number one U.K. and Top Ten U.S. hit that began a virtually uninterrupted string of Jagger-Richards hit singles. Still, it wasn't until the group released "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" in the summer of 1965 that they were elevated to superstars. Driven by a fuzz-guitar riff designed to replicate the sound of a horn section, "Satisfaction" signaled that Jagger and Richards had come into their own as songwriters, breaking away from their blues roots and developing a signature style of big, bluesy riffs and wry, sardonic lyrics. It stayed at number one for four weeks and began a string of Top Ten singles that ran for the next two years, including such classics as "Get Off My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "As Tears Go By," and "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" By 1966, the Stones had decided to respond to the Beatles' increasingly complex albums with their first album of all-original material, Aftermath.

Due to Brian Jones' increasingly exotic musical tastes, the record boasted a wide range of influences, from the sitar-drenched "Paint It, Black" to the Eastern drones of "I'm Going Home." These eclectic influences continued to blossom on Between the Buttons (1967), the most pop-oriented album the group ever made. Ironically, the album's release was bookended by two of the most notorious incidents in the band's history. Before the record was released, the Stones performed the suggestive "Let's Spend the Night Together," the B-side to the medieval ballad "Ruby Tuesday," on The Ed Sullivan Show, which forced Jagger to alter the song's title to an incomprehensible mumble, or else face being banned. In February of 1967, Jagger and Richards were arrested for drug possession, and within three months, Jones was arrested on the same charge. All three were given suspended jail sentences, and the group backed away from the spotlight as the summer of love kicked into gear in 1967.

Jagger, along with his then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, went with the Beatles to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; they were also prominent in the international broadcast of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love." Appropriately, the Stones' next single, "Dandelion"/"We Love You," was a psychedelic pop effort, and it was followed by their response to Sgt. Pepper's, Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was greeted with lukewarm reviews. The Stones' infatuation with psychedelia was brief. By early 1968, they had fired Andrew Loog Oldham and hired Allen Klein as their manager. The move coincided with their return to driving rock & roll, which happened to coincide with Richards' discovery of open tunings, a move that gave the Stones their distinctively fat, powerful sound. The revitalized Stones were showcased on the malevolent single "Jumpin' Jack Flash," which climbed to number three in May 1968. Their next album, Beggar's Banquet, was finally released in the fall, after being delayed for five months due its controversial cover art of a dirty, graffiti-laden restroom.

An edgy record filled with detours into straight blues and campy country, Beggar's Banquet was hailed as a masterpiece among the fledgling rock press. Although it was seen as a return to form, few realized that while it opened a new chapter of the Stones' history, it was also the end of their time with Brian Jones. Throughout the recording of Beggar's Banquet, Jones was on the sidelines due to his deepening drug addiction and his resentment of the dominance of Jagger and Richards. Jones left the band on June 9, 1969, claiming to be suffering from artistic differences between himself and the rest of the band. On July 3, 1969 -- less than a month after his departure -- Jones was found dead in his swimming pool. The coroner ruled that it was "death by misadventure," yet his passing was the subject of countless rumors over the next two years. By the time of his death, the Stones had already replaced Jones with Mick Taylor, a former guitarist for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

He wasn't featured on "Honky Tonk Women," a number one single released days after Jones' funeral, and he contributed only a handful of leads on their next album, Let It Bleed. Released in the fall of 1969, Let It Bleed was comprised of sessions with Jones and Taylor, yet it continued the direction of Beggar's Banquet, signaling that a new era in the Stones' career had begun, one marked by ragged music and an increasingly wasted sensibility. Following Jagger's filming of Ned Kelly in Australia during the first part of 1969, the group launched its first American tour in three years. Throughout the tour -- the first where they were billed as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band -- the group broke attendance records, but it was given a sour note when they staged a free concert at Altamont Speedway. On the advice of the Grateful Dead, the Stones hired Hell's Angels as security, but that plan backfired tragically. The entire show was unorganized and in shambles, and it turned tragic when the Angels killed a young black man, Meredith Hunter, during the Stones' performance.

In the wake of the public outcry, the Stones again retreated from the spotlight and dropped "Sympathy for the Devil," which some critics ignorantly claimed incited the violence, from their set. As the group entered a hiatus, they released the live Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! in the fall of 1970. It was their last album for Decca/London, and they formed Rolling Stones Records, which became a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. During 1970, Jagger starred in Nicolas Roeg's cult film Performance and married Nicaragua model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias; the couple quickly entered high society. As Jagger was jet-setting, Richards was slumming, hanging out with country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons. Keith wound up having more musical influence on 1971's Sticky Fingers, the first album the Stones released through their new label. Following its release, the band retreated to France in tax exile, where they shared a house and recorded a double album, Exile on Main St. Upon its May 1972 release, Exile on Main St. was widely panned, but over time it came to be considered one of the group's defining moments.

Following Exile, the Stones began to splinter in two, as Jagger concentrated on being a celebrity and Richards sank into drug addiction. The band remained popular throughout the '70s, but their critical support waned. Goats Head Soup, released in 1973, reached number one, as did 1974's It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, but neither record was particularly well received. Taylor left the band after It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, and the group recorded their next album as they auditioned new lead guitarists, including Jeff Beck. They finally settled on Ron Wood, former lead guitarist for the Faces and Rod Stewart, in 1976, the same year they released Black n' Blue, which only featured Wood on a handful of cuts. During the mid- and late '70s, all the Stones pursued side projects, with both Wyman and Wood releasing solo albums with regularity. Richards was arrested in Canada in 1977 with his common-law wife Anita Pallenberg for heroin possession. After his arrest, he cleaned up and was given a suspended sentence the following year.

The band reconvened in 1978 to record Some Girls, an energetic response to punk, new wave, and disco. The record and its first single, the thumping disco-rocker "Miss You," both reached number one, and the album restored the group's image. However, the band squandered that goodwill with the follow-up, Emotional Rescue, a number one record that nevertheless received lukewarm reviews upon its 1980 release. Tattoo You, released the following year, fared better both critically and commercially, as the singles "Start Me Up" and "Waiting on a Friend" helped the album spend nine weeks at number one. The Stones supported Tattoo You with an extensive stadium tour captured in Hal Ashby's movie Let's Spend the Night Together and the 1982 live album Still Life. Tattoo You proved to be the last time the Stones completely dominated the charts and the stadiums. Although the group continued to sell out concerts in the '80s and '90s, their records didn't sell as well as previous efforts, partially because the albums suffered due to Jagger and Richards' notorious mid-'80s feud.

Starting with 1983's Undercover, the duo were conflicted about which way the band should go, with Jagger wanting the Stones to follow contemporary trends and Richards wanting them to stay true to their rock roots. As a result, Undercover was a mean-spirited, unfocused record that received relatively weak sales and mixed reviews. Released in 1986, Dirty Work suffered a worse fate, since Jagger was preoccupied with his fledgling solo career. Once Jagger decided that the Stones would not support Dirty Work with a tour, Richards decided to make his own solo record with 1988's Talk Is Cheap. Appearing a year after Jagger's failed second solo album, Talk Is Cheap received good reviews and went gold, prompting Jagger and Richards to reunite late in 1988. The following year, the Stones released Steel Wheels, which was received with good reviews, but the record was overshadowed by its supporting tour, which grossed over 140 million dollars and broke many box office records. In 1991, the live album Flashpoint, which was culled from the Steel Wheels shows, was released.

Following the release, Bill Wyman left the band; he published a memoir, Stone Alone, within a few years of leaving. The Stones didn't immediately replace Wyman, since they were all working on solo projects; this time, there was none of the animosity surrounding their mid-'80s projects. The group reconvened in 1994 with bassist Darryl Jones, who had previously played with Miles Davis and Sting, to record and release the Don Was-produced Voodoo Lounge. The album received the band's strongest reviews in years, and its accompanying tour was even more successful than the Steel Wheels tour. On top of being more successful than its predecessor, Voodoo Lounge also won the Stones their first Grammy for Best Rock Album. Upon the completion of the Voodoo Lounge tour, the Stones released the live "unplugged" album Stripped in the fall of 1995. Similarly, after wrapping up their tour in support of 1997's Bridges to Babylon, the group issued yet another live set, No Security, the following year.

A high-profile greatest-hits tour in 2002 was launched despite the lack of a studio album to support, and its album document, Live Licks, appeared in 2004. A year later, the group issued A Bigger Bang, their third effort with producer Don Was. In 2006, Martin Scorsese filmed two of the group's performances at New York City's Beacon Theatre. The resulting Shine a Light, which included guest appearances from Buddy Guy, Jack White, and Christina Aguilera, was released in theaters in 2008. The accompanying soundtrack reached the number two spot on the U.K. charts. Following Shine a Light, the Stones turned their attention toward their legacy. For Keith Richards, this meant delving into writing his autobiography Life -- the memoir was published to acclaim in the fall of 2010 and generated some controversy due to comments Keith made about Mick -- but the Stones in general spent time mining their archives, something they'd previously avoided. In 2010, they released a super deluxe edition of Exile on Main St.

that contained a bonus disc of rarities and outtakes, including a few newly finished songs like "Plundered My Soul." This was followed in 2011 by a super deluxe edition of Some Girls that also contained unheard songs and outtakes. That same year, the Stones opened up their Rolling Stones Archive, which offered official digital releases of classic live bootlegs like 1973's The Brussels Affair. All this was a prelude to their 50th anniversary in 2012, which the group celebrated with a hardcover book, a new documentary called Crossfire Hurricane, and a new compilation called GRRR!. The Stones also played a handful of star-studded concerts at the end of the year and in the first half of 2013, several of which featured guest spots from the long-departed Mick Taylor. These live shows culminated with a headlining spot at Glastonbury and two July 2013 concerts at Hyde Park; highlights from the Hyde Park shows were released that July and, later in the year, there was a home video/CD release of the concert called Sweet Summer Sun: Live in Hyde Park.

Over the next few years, the Stones played concerts regularly -- a highlight was a March 2016 concert in Havana, Cuba -- and slowly worked on an album that was teased in September 2016, the same week their London/Decca works were released as the box set The Rolling Stones in Mono. On October 6, the band announced the December 2 release of Blue & Lonesome, a collection of Chicago blues covers that would be their first studio album in 11 years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi The Rolling Stones - Biography - IMDb The Rolling Stones Jump to: Overview (2) | Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (10) | Salary (1) Overview (2) The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band Mini Bio (1) The Rolling Stones are the legendary British rock band known for many popular hits, such as Paint it Black, Lady Jane, Ruby Tuesday, and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Almost everyone who attended their shows is quick to comment on their ability to start you up and shake your hips.

Their song "Satisfaction" (1965) was composed by Keith Richards in his sleep, and with the addition of provocative lyrics by Mick Jagger it became the greatest hit and their calling card on each and every show. In 1966, after The Beatles stopped giving live performances, The Rolling Stones took over as the unofficial "biggest touring band in the world" for the next few years. During 1966-1969 they toured the world, and constantly updated their song-list with many great hits like "Lets Spend the night together" (1967), "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968) and "Honky tonk woman" (1969). The incredible international success of the Stones came with a sad side, caused by Brian's drug and alcohol abuse that impaired his speech and appearance, so the band-mates had to replace him. In July 1969, Brian Jones died of drowning in his swimming pool while having signs of drug overdose. Upon Richards's and Jagger's approval, guitarist Mick Taylor took Brian's place.

Brian's death at age 27 made him one of the first members of the infamous "27 Club" of rock stars who died at that age. Although Brian's estrangement from his band-mates, and his numerous arrests were caused by his personal problems with drugs, both Richards and Jagger were blamed at the time for Brian's death. The loss of one of their founding members was a painful moment for the Stones. However, at the end of the 1960s their creativity reached the new highs. Their albums "Beggars Banquet" (1968) and "Sticky Fingers" (1971) were among the most popular albums they ever made, having such hits as "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar." During the 1970s The Rolling Stones remained the biggest band in the world, albeit they were rivaled by the Led Zeppelin . The Stones made thousands of live performances and multi-million record sales with hits like "Angie" (1973), "It's Only Rock and Roll" (1974), "Hot Stuff" (1976) and "Respectable" (1978).

At that time both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger had individual ambitions, and applied their untamed creativity in various projects outside the Stones. Keith released his own single. In 1974 Ron Wood had replaced Mick Taylor on guitar and Keith and Ron both played lead guitars. During the decade Keith Richards had a family crisis on his hands, and suffered through emotional pain and drug abuse, albeit it didn't stop him from being himself. In 1980 the group released "Emotional Rescue" which Keith Richards didn't care for, and the group didn't even tour to promote the album. In 1981 with the release of 'Tattoo You', the group went on a major world tour filling stadiums in the US and in Europe. In 1983 the Stones recorded the album "Undercover" at the Compass Point in Nassau and during this time Mick and Keith were having arguments over rights of the group. After having created tens of albums and over a hundred popular songs together, their legendary song-writing partnership was undergoing the most painful test: the bitter rivalry between two enormously talented and equally ambitious superstars. Mick Jagger is the heart of "The Stones" and Keith Richards - the soul.

The two had carried on their early image of unkempt youth, had survived ups and downs in their careers and personal lives, and remained the core of the band since they shared a flat with the late Brian Jones in London in 1962. Two other remaining members are drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron Wood. "The Stones" were part of the "British Invasion" in international culture during the 1960s, and has been extremely popular and famous for their 60s craze, hot stuff and sex drive. Since the 1970s they remained one of the biggest entertainment acts touring the world with a retinue of jet-set hangers-on. Their inimitable shows, no matter the best, or the worst, has been played with fire and emotion, giving their audiences the kind of music they do best - it's only rock'n roll. Mick Jagger dropped out of college and his every move on-stage and off-stage seemed to signal a challenge to "respectable" standards. He never received a formal musical education, and even could not read music.

However, he worked hard and emerged as the lead singer and songwriter in partnership with Richards, following the example of John Lennon and Paul McCartney 's songwriting for The Beatles . Outside of the Rolling Stones, Jagger released solo albums with his original songs, as well as his versions of such hits as 'Use Me' by songwriter Bill Withers . Jagger also starred in several films, such as Freejack (1992), Bent (1997), and The Man from Elysian Fields (2001). Mick Jagger fathered seven children from four women, donated to numerous school and charities, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at the Buckingham Palace in 2003. Keith Richards , was a schoolmate of Mick Jagger since the primary school. In 1960 they contemplated starting up a band together. Since the formation of the Rolling Stones in 1962, Richards has been the principal songwriting partner with Jagger, and most of the songs on all Rolling Stones albums are credited to Jagger/Richards.

Outside of the Rolling Stones, Richards toured with The New Barbarians, and also was the front-man of the X-pensive Winos in the 1980s. Besides his music career, Richards made a cameo appearance as the father of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) filmed by his friend, director Gore Verbinski . Other members of The Rolling Stones has been also enjoying their individual careers outside of the band. Multi-instrumentalist Ronnie Wood collaborated with such performers as Prince, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, and Aretha Franklin, among others. His collaboration with Rod Stewart resulted in a hit album. Wood is also an accomplished artist who sold about $10 million worth of his artworks. Drummer Charlie Watts , who has been ever faithful to his one and only wife, Shirley, is known for his consistency in refusing sexual favors from groupies. He is also a jazz band-leader, and commercial artist, who had solo shows and successfully auctioned his artworks. The Rolling Stones have released 55 albums of original work and compilations, and sold over 200 million records word-wide during their career spanning over 45 years.

"The Stones" played in all kinds of spaces from small clubs to big stadium arenas. In 2007 they even rocked the Tsar's Winter Palace with fifty thousand fans in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the communist revolution took place. They gave more large-scale shows internationally than any other existing band in the world, culminating in their 2005-2007 "A Bigger Band" tour with 147 concerts, the highest grossing tour of all time with $559 million earned. Come on, Stones, give us more of your respectable shows, get us rocking, we can make it if we try. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov Trivia (10) The Rolling Stones ( Mick Jagger , Keith Richards , Brian Jones , Bill Wyman , Charlie Watts , Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood ) were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. The Rolling Stones were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame for their outstanding contribution to British music and integral part of British music culture in 2004.

Hit #1 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart in 1965 with the release of "Out Of Our Heads". Hit #3 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart in 1964 with the release of "12 X 5". They were #2 on the annual Forbes magazine Celebrity 100 list in 2006. The ornate cake that appeared on the sleeve of the band's, "Let It Bleed" (1969) album, was produced by future TV celebrity chef Delia Smith . Ranked #67 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists. Ranked #2 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll. Among the musicians who auditioned to replace Mick Taylor were Jeff Beck , Peter Frampton and Rory Gallagher . Release of the book, "The Rolling Stones: Unseen Archives" by Susan Hill. [2005] The first major band to have a concert broadcast live on the internet on 18 November 1994, with Severe Tire Damage , the first band ever to be broadcast on the internet, as the "opening act".

Salary (1) Charlie Watts | The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones Born 2 June 1941 Kingsbury, UK Charlie Watts Charlie Watts is considered by just about everyone to be the coolest man in rock, but he would be just as happy to be considered one of the coolest men in jazz. Bringing the sensibilities of a jazz drummer to rock music has always been at the heart of what has made Charlie Watts one of the most respected musicians in the world. Charles Robert Watts was born on Monday 2 June 1941 at University College Hospital in London and then went to live in Kingsbury, an area of Wembley, but with his father away in the Royal Air Force on wartime duties and his mother working he would often spend time with his grandmother who lived near Kings Cross Station in central London, It was when he was around ten years old that Charlie discovered jazz, and Miles Davis and John Coltrane in particular. It was soon after this that he began to explore the idea of becoming a drummer when he converted an old banjo, with a skin covering, into a snare drum.

Charlie had no formal lessons and credits being able to watch great jazz drummers in London’s jazz clubs as being the people that taught him how to play drums, properly. Leaving school in 1957 Charlie went to Harrow School of Art and in 1960 he got a job as a graphic artist with an advertising agency in London. A year later he combined his love of art and jazz by writing a book about Charlie Parker that he called, Ode to a High-Flying Bird, that was eventually published in 1965. In the evening, while working in the advertising agency, Charlie played drums with a variety of groups including Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, a band that Mick Jagger sang with a couple of times. As the fledgling Rolling Stones were coming together to practice they tried to persuade Charlie to become their drummer, but he sensibly stayed with his paying gigs with more established bands. Eventually in early January 1963 Charlie relented, the Stones were finally earning some money and he played his first gig with the band on 12 January at the Ealing Blues Club with the six piece band that included pianist Ian Stewart, bass player Bill Wyman and guitarist Brian Jones.

Away from the Rolling Stones Charlie has found the time to continue to play jazz – he considers jazz to be his principal recreation – with a number of different groups, including a 32-piece band – the Charlie Watts Orchestra as well as working with Ian Stewart in the band Rocket 88 during the 1980s. In the 1990s the Charlie Watts Quintet released several albums, including a tribute to Charlie Parker. Come 2004 and the quintet and expanded to become, Charlie Watts and the Tentet that both recorded and played live. Throughout the band’s recording career and live performances Charlie has been rock solid and despite resigning after every tour since 1969 Charlie continues to be the heartbeat of the Rolling Stones, and not just when he’s perched on the drum stool. Everyone respect him for his quiet and polite approach to the business of being a member of one of the most successful bands in history. As a jazzman he understands the power of collaboration, never seeking the limelight he swings and always provides the Rolling Stones with the rock solid foundation. Follow Charlie

Question: Who is the drummer with the Rolling Stones?
Answer: CHARLIE WATTS